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If you have to deal with unpleasant weather, you might as well use it to your advantage. That’s what the residents of Waynesburg, PA, do each year on July 29th, when they host their annual Rain Day Festival and make a wager with a national or local celebrity as to whether or not it will rain. The stakes? A new hat.

The festival has its origins in the late 1800s in a conversation between William Allison, a pharmacist at the Daly & Spraggs Drug Store on Waynesburg’s main street, and an unknown farmer. The farmer remarked that it would rain the next day (July 29th), because that day was his birthday and it always rained on his birthday. He had kept a journal for several years, the farmer said, and had always made a note of the weather on his birthday. It was usually rain.

His curiosity piqued, Allison decided to keep his own record of the weather on July 29th. This task was passed on to his brother and then continued by drugstore owner Byron Daly, with whom the Rain Day tradition of betting a hat originated.

Noting that it did indeed rain on July 29th more often than not, Daly decided it was too good an opportunity to pass up. When salesmen would come into his store, he would wager them a new hat that it would rain on July 29th. Daly soon amassed quite the collection of hats.

The tradition gained global recognition in the 1930s thanks to the efforts of journalist John O’Hara, who began sending stories about Rain Day to other newspapers. Due to the publicity this brought, Daly’s son, John (who was now the one carrying on the Rain Day tradition), was able to extend the annual hat wager to regional and national celebrities.

Those notables who have bet a new hat on the outcome of the Waynesburg weather include Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, the Three Stooges, Arnold Palmer, Johnny Carson, Jay Leno, Fran Drescher, Chubby Checker, Donald Trump, and the double-wagering team of Mr. Rogers and Mr. McFeely.

It’s safe to say that most of them lost the bet. As of 2005, it had rained 109 out of the past 131 years in Waynesburg on July 29th.

In addition to the annual hat wager, the Rain Day Festival includes a Miss Rain Day pageant, a street fair, and an umbrella decorating contest, among other events. We imagine this is the only outdoor festival in the world where the organizers are happy when it rains.

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– Teresa Santoski

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